New Civilization News: The challenge of rebuilding local subsistence economies    
 The challenge of rebuilding local subsistence economies7 comments
29 Jul 2002 @ 21:07, by Martin Oliver

In recent times, local economies have fallen victim to globalisation, but this process is not inevitable or non-reversible. Rather than being colonies of the global economy, our villages, towns, and cities have the potential to be largely self-sufficient in essentials. In Western countries, it is only a relatively short space of time since this level of self-reliance existed nearly everywhere.

Richard Douthwaite is an influential non-growth, Green economist based in Ireland. In his important 1996 book 'Short Circuit' (Green Books, UK, 1996), he makes the sobering claim that even those people living in industrialised countries can no longer rely on the global economy to meet their basic needs, and that these needs should ideally be met by a parallel local subsistence economy.

'Short Circuit' sets out four key priorities, which are (in order of priority) to:

1) Create a local complimentary currency
2) Set up local financial institutions
3) Generate power from renewable energy
4) Grow local organic food.

The main body of the book is divided up into four sizeable chapters, each based on one of the four key priorities. For each area of focus, several current examples are given. (The author's reason for placing energy above food is based on the idea that food production is reliant on the use of energy, and I'm sure some people will question this).

Inspired by this book and a number of similar past and present initiatives (the Antigonish Movement (1920's, Eastern Canada), the Australian Antigonish Movement, the Mondragon cooperatives (Spain), I recently put together a draft step-by-step model under which a neighbourhood, suburb or town could create such a parallel economy. This is provisionally called 'Community Inc', and being at a 'work in progress' stage, constructive suggestions are appreciated. (As I'm not interested in ego games along the lines of 'my model is better than your model', if anyone finds any of it useful, inspiring or thought-provoking then it is serving its purpose).

It is can be read at:

[link]

My order of key priorities runs:

1) Achieve community consolidation
2) Create a fundraising system
3) Establish communication infrastructure
4) Look at setting up a complimentary currency and local financial institutions
5) Gain community control over land
6) Set up housing cooperatives
7) Grow local organic food
8) Generate power from renewable energy
9) Other elements

In putting it together, one of my aims was to reconnect the fragmentation that tends to haunt regenerative enterprises, to substitute this with an integration in which every element in the system is strategically connected (usually economically) to the greater whole. I also feel that it is very important to always work 'on the ground', rather than getting lost in the more comfortable real of abstractions and philosophies.

This model was influenced by the Spanish Mondragon network of cooperatives, created at the end of the Second World War. Under the Mondragon system, a strong synergistic energy was created by the mutual cooperation of the member cooperatives. For example:

- coops trade with other coops as a first preference.
- a coop bank was set up, which is authorised to set up further coops.
- coops make joint purchasing agreements to reduce costs.
- no workers are sacked – instead they are employed in another cooperative.

For grassroots economic regeneration to succeed, it is always easier if local resources are held under local control. Outside companies may come into an area, profit from liquidating the natural capital, and then leave. Only local people have the vested interest in ensuring that local resources are used sustainably. It may be necessary for people to band together for the purpose of buying back these resources.

No matter how hard these challenges appear in an environment of mistrust and community breakdown, the process needs to be started. Overcoming disempowerment is an important first step; another is establishing mutual trust with like-minded people. In Australia mutual trust can be difficult, I expect the picture in the US is similar. We may need to rediscover the meaning of the word 'solidarity' (removed from its socialist context).

To give a real-life example, the local organic farmers' market in Lismore has recently been talking about setting up a bulk-buying cooperative for ecological products such as recycled toilet paper and environmentally sound detergents. The challenge is to translate this into action, and hopefully, in time, even manufacture some of these products locally.

If anyone knows of existing examples of integrative approaches for regenerating local grassroots economies, I'd be very interested in hearing about them.

Richard Douthwaite is also connected to the Irish-based Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability (FEASTA). Their site is at:

[link]

A lot of important work in this field is being carried out by the UK's New Economics Foundation. They are at:

[link]

In a slightly broader context, and coming from a US perspective, the Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR) is a long-running organisation working in the field of locally-controlled economic development.

[link]

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7 comments

30 Jul 2002 @ 04:19 by istvan : Basic, but essential
Thank you for gathering this useful information.My short philosophy is: If the basic needs are not attended to progress will not be achived toward new civilisations.
At present i can not think of any neighbor or local org. to be interested in this, but i will try.  

30 Jul 2002 @ 06:18 by chaiyah : Local skills banks.
Ithaca NY has been very successful in establishing their own currency economy. And we here in Pendletown County, West Virginia, truly need to do something like that as well. I hope someone with some experience in this regard will come speak up.  

12 Aug 2002 @ 18:10 by cho : *Will this bounce up to the top?*
Thanks for this page.
Talking to a young friend last week about the history of NGOs in Canada, and how there had at one time been a whole network of "learner-centered" resource centers dealing with development education, we found ourselves talking about employment: she had a degree in international development studies, had worked for a major NGO (Oxfam) but was now employed at the local casino.
I laid out my life plans anticipating that the community support for necessary information services would not dry up but, rather, expand and develope. That has not been the case: when specialists in the field end up with service jobs, there can be little hope for the likes of me; I'm an odd-ball, an eccentric, a free-lance, a roaving safety ... during the best of times I get by with what slips off the table, during the hard times, well, I may survive, but I certainly can't thrive.
It's economic warfare. I know what I did: I've been preaching alternative economics for 29 years, I did back to the land to raise 5 healthy kids, I helped establish an alternative currency in this city, I've helped start food co-ops, food banks, street kitchens ... but there's nothing like a marketable skill here, and as a consequence I don't even have a friggin' printer, let alone the security of knowing my phone and power won't be cut off.
There are a few who adjust to abject poverty, my friends the dumpster divers ... you might find literature about their friends if you search for "Food Not Bombs". And I hear that some squats are surviving. But basically, the comfortable yuppy syndrome rules. And we need to remember that a million dollars isn't enough to retire on, and soooo ...

Perhaps the real need for communitarian alternatives will only ramify when the shit hits the fan. That would be sad, since by that time the situation will really be dire.

Gawd it galls me, to think of the money I could have made in recording, or communications, or broadcasting, or real estate, or even the military. But none of them would have qualified me for the present situation, right? *heh!*

p.s. there are two ways to perceive the world; one of them is egocentric  

13 Aug 2002 @ 01:07 by jazzolog : Lifted Gently, Ben
You've been bounced just the right number of times. Everything that comes across the Internet about you seems tremendously appealing to me. If only I had a job to offer! But I do have friendship...and that I extend to you in any way. Let me know when the time is right for me to lend a hand.  

13 Aug 2002 @ 07:05 by cho : Let's start something!
*I'm only half kidding*
A spent part of yesterday in discussion with some of the young folk who've been part of the anti-globalization movement locally, university students who stayed and worked through the summer rather than heading home; I normally run into a couple in the course of a regular day but we ended up a group of nearly 10 ... my heart was in my mouth.
I can honestly say there's a scabby pad of scar tissue in the spot where I think about alternative economics. What can I tell these kids?! Rule 1: don't bum them out. But, realistically, what can I do but tell tales (anyone heard of the Briarpatch collective, SF circa 68? hippy businesses informed and uplifted by the guidance of a bank-manager type who "saw the light"), talk up the good (in our Zen center we had 4 businesses: stained glass, massage, pottery, and we paid the mortgage by growing alfalfa sprouts), and like that. But in the back of my mind I'm wondering, "Gawd, do they realize I've received disconnect notice for my phone? Don't they see that my sneakers are 4 years old?"
I sometimes wish I was more the conquering hero type, but that's never been my path. Maybe this truly is the darkness before the dawn, but I don't see the sort of broad-based, deeply spiritual, grass-roots movement that would make a comprehensive set of alternatives viable ... and that's what the kids would need. *Gawd, have we let a whole generation down?"
"Change only takes place through action, frankly speaking. Not through prayer or meditation, but
through action." HHDalai Lama  

13 Aug 2002 @ 15:00 by istvan : Yes i agree with that
Yes we have let the new generations down, but so did our ancestors. Self centerdness is the main attribute of Homo sapien.  

15 Aug 2002 @ 20:25 by alchemist : Grassroots economic survival
If such local networks become large and strong enough to pay their participants a real wage, a big step has been taken towards economic sustainability. Such a wage could be paid in local currency, if there's a large enough diversity of necessities being offered.

In meantime, I think that we have to be prepared to start small and work on the margins, so long as this doesn't lead to economic marginalisation.  

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